


Home

by taylor_tut



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Child Neglect, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, caring david, dadvid, neglected david, neglected max, parental david
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 02:23:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14227032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: After camp is over, Max learns that some people don't only care when they HAVE to. Cliche title.





	Home

Max was sulking by his full suitcase.

Of course, none of the children were excited to leave Camp Campbell, it was a little surprising that Max wasn’t chomping at the bit to get out. He’d done nothing but complain about it, after all, since the moment he’d arrived, and if David didn’t know better, he’d have thought that meant he wanted to go home.

As the rest of the campers traded cell phone numbers and goodbye cards, Max sat on his stripped bed alone. Well, David couldn’t stand for that.

“Hey, Max,” he greeted, “everything okay?”

Max rolled his eyes. “Yeah,” he replied, “Just can’t wait to leave this shithole.”

David frowned. “Why not say goodbye to everyone?” he asked. “Surely you want to keep in contact with some of your new friends, right?” 

He shrugged his shoulders, avoiding David’s eyes.

“You’re really not looking forward to going home, huh?” 

Home. Right. That was the problem. This was camp, and with his parents was a house, but nothing was comfortable, or right, or warm. He wasn’t going home--he was getting bounced from one shithole to another, the story of his life.

Max glared. “Of course I am,” he snapped. “I mean… I don’t want to go home, but I sure as hell don’t want to stay here.”

“Then what do you want?”

Max thought for a long time, but said nothing.

“Look, I know you feel like no one could possibly understand,” David said slowly, “and I don’t; I mean, it’s different for every kid. But my home situation growing up was… not exactly ideal, either. So I get it.”

Max huffed out a bitter laugh. “Right,” he bit, “I’m sure Davey’s parents were just  _ so mean _ .” David offered nothing but the most patient of smiles until Max drew back. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay,” David reassured. “You didn’t know.”

Max hesitated. “Did you… did your parents, like--they didn’t hit you or anything, did they?”

“I’m not trying to make this about me, Max,” David dodged. “I just want you to know that you’re not alone in this. And that when and if you decide to open up, I’m here.” 

With that, David stood, ready to leave Max alone, positive that he’d only pissed him off, but he was stopped with his hand on the doorknob.

“Wait,” he said. “I, uh. I never really talk about it. So would it be okay to… talk about it?”

David sat back down on the bed.

\---------------------------------------

“Oh, and the whole ‘of course they love you; they’re your parents’ speech!” David laughed, “It’s like some people have never been out in the real world!”

Max cackled. “I know! It’s like, how much effort do people think it takes to deposit a human onto the earth and then act like they’re dead weight for ten years?” 

David wiped tears from his eyes--he’d never joked about any of this before, never even really discussed it, frankly. “Well, I can’t tell you it gets better,” he admitted, “but I can say that you’ve got to stick it out, because you’ve only got eight more years before you get out on your own, and let me tell you--that’s the greatest feeling in the world.” He sobered and met Max’s eyes. “And just because they make you feel like dead weight, doesn’t mean that you are.”

Max scoffed.

“I’m serious,” David insisted. “Hey, look at me.” He put his hands on Max’s shoulders, remaining crouched in front of him until he met his eyes. “You’re a good kid, Max,” he said sincerely. “A really good kid. And you deserve a lot more love and attention than you get.” 

He wanted to look away, but instead, he just found himself blinking hard through a film of tears.

“That’s why I want to give you my number.” David handed Max a small piece of paper with a phone number scrawled on it, with a small picture of a platypus drawn on the sticky note. “If you ever need anything, I don’t want you to even hesitate to call me, okay?”

Max nodded, but it didn’t really mean much. “Yeah,” he agreed. He’d promised that too many times to too many people who hadn’t picked up the phone to really believe it.

\---------------------------------TWO MONTHS LATER---------------------------------

David blearily reached for his phone, blinding himself trying to read the caller ID and deciding to just answer instead.

“Hello?”

“David?” a small voice asked, “it’s me, Max.” 

David sat up in bed. “Hey, buddy,” he greeted, suddenly wide awake, “what’s up?”

There was a long pause and some uncomfortable shifting on Max’s side of the phone conversation, and David was about to prompt him again when he finally replied. 

“Shit, I didn’t even realize how late it is,” he said. “Sorry, it’s nothing. Just--my parents aren’t home, and they won’t be for a few more days, and there was a weird sound downstairs and I guess I panicked. It was stupid; I’ll let you get back to sleeping--”

“Wait,” David stopped him. “What’s your address?”

\-----------------------------------------

David was at his door half an hour later, looking exhausted. Max let him in wordlessly, watching him lock the door behind him, double-checking it to make sure. 

“Where did you hear noises?” he asked. 

Max could cry. He knew there was nothing there. He knew  _ David _ knew there was nothing there. It was the wind, and his mind playing tricks on him, and loneliness.

“David, it’s stupid; you don’t have to--”

David held up one hand to stop him from continuing. “Nope,” he interjected, “I’m not staying the night here until we’ve made sure that everything’s safe. It’s as much for my safety as it is for yours,” he lied blatantly. Max bit down on a smile anyway, pointing to the basement door. 

A thorough negative monster-search later, David decided that he was satisfied with their level of security and herded Max back to bed. 

“You’re going to be so tired at school tomorrow,” he lamented.

“I’ll just drink an extra cup of coffee,” Max shrugged, and David looked horrified. 

“You will do  _ no such thing _ !” He turned off Max’s light, lingering in the doorway for a moment longer, which Max could only tell because of the reflection of the glow-stars on his ceiling in David’s eyes. “If you need anything, I’ll be on the couch,” David announced with a yawn. Before he could get too far, Max threw a pillow and blanket at the back of his head, earning a semi-grateful “oof” for his efforts.

\----------------------------------------

When Max woke up the next morning, it was to the smell of breakfast. He shuffled into the kitchen to find David at the stove, fully dressed and cooking.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

“Good morning!” David chirped. “I’m making eggs and pancakes.”

Max frowned. “We didn’t have eggs,” he said, sniffing the full glass of liquid that was sitting at the table in front of his spot, “or apple juice.”

“You didn’t have much of anything, really,” David countered. “I went on a grocery store run this morning.”

David had come over at nearly 3 a.m, and it was only 7:30 now. 

“Do you like your pancakes with chocolate chips, or blueberries?”

Max smiled slightly. “Blueberries,” he replied. “Chocolate is too sweet.”

Moments later, he was watching David smother his chocolate chip pancakes in syrup, grimacing. “Jesus, David; you cook breakfast like goddamned Buddy the Elf.” 

“Eat up,” David instructed. “You don’t want to be late for school.”

\---------------------------------------------------

David was there waiting for him when he got off the bus. 

“Don’t you have a job that you need to do during all the months of the year you’re not running that hellhole of a camp?” Max asked. David patted a briefcase--something that Max wouldn’t have been able to picture David holding in a million years if it weren’t right in front of him.

“Already done,” he said. “I went home and got my laptop to work while you were at school.”

“What do you even do? Are you one of those Camgirls or something?”

David looked confused. “I don’t even know what that is,” he admitted. “I copy edit,” he said. “You know, fix mistakes in people’s writing, make it flow better.”

Max’s eyebrows raised. “What, like books?”

David shrugged. “Books, magazines, the occasional blog. Whatever people ask for.”

“That’s actually kind of cool,” Max said.

“You think so?” David asked, his nose in the air. “It’s nowhere near as exciting as camp. No one to talk to; no moving around. It gets pretty boring.”

Not once through dinner did David ask when Max’s parents would be back. He didn’t bring it up while he supervised Max doing his homework, or while they watched Iron Man 2 as a reward for finishing early, or the next morning when Max missed the bus and David drove him to school.

That Friday evening, as Max told David some pointless story about something that had happened at school that day--David already knew the names of more of Max’s friends than both of his parents combined--he realized that for the first time in a very very long time, he felt genuinely relaxed. 

“You know,” he said around a mouthful of macaroni and cheese, “it’s weird how… not weird it is to have you around all the time.”

David quirked an eyebrow. “You’re not sick of me?” he taunted, earning a scoff.

“Oh, of  _ course _ I’m sick of you,” Max said, “but… I thought it’d be… I don’t know. I thought it’d feel really foreign to have someone around the house all the time like this.”

David nodded sympathetically. “And it doesn’t?”

“No,” Max admitted. “It just feels… it feels like this is what’s supposed to be normal, and so now I can’t stop just… fucking hating what I had before.”

But the other shoe had to drop.

It always did.

He could see it in David’s face before he even took the breath to begin the sentence. 

David had a life he needed to get back to, one that didn’t include Max. Max’s parents were still gone, enjoying their lives that didn’t include Max. God, he knew that the solar system didn’t revolve around him or anything, but Jesus fucking Christ, was it too much to ask for just one person to want to stay in his orbit?

“Max, we need to talk about something.”

No matter how much you expected the Band-Aid to hurt when it came off, it didn’t take the sting out of it.

“Yeah,” Max agreed breathily, “yeah, I figured that.”

David’s face didn’t betray a single emotion.

“You’ve got your own place and your own shit to do,” Max continued. He felt cold. He felt empty. He felt worse than he had before he’d called David. “You can just go back home whenever you need to. I’m sure my parents will be home soon, anyway.”

David gaped. “Max,” he said simply. Max couldn’t fight it back this time, and buried his eyes in the crook of his elbow, using the soft blue sleeve to keep them dry and hidden from David’s view.

“Don’t say a fucking word,” Max threatened, though it was hollow. “I’m not crying.”

David might have been, though.

“Max, I was going to ask if you’d be alright with coming home with me for a bit,” he explained, “I--oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. You must have thought--” he choked up for a moment. “No. I’m not leaving you. Not even for a minute, okay?”

Max looked up, his eyes red-rimmed and still teary.

“Not even for a minute. But…” David laughed, “my house plants are dying, and they need watering. And my back is really starting to hurt from sleeping on the couch.” 

“You’re… taking me to your place?” Max verified, not truly sure he’d heard him right. 

“Only if you want to,” David reassured. “If you’re not comfortable with it, then I’ll keep staying here. But no-way no-how are you getting left alone,” he promised, “ever again.”

An hour later, Max had a little bag packed full of the things he needed for school and to live comfortably at David’s for a few days.

“You’re sure you’re okay with coming home with me?” David asked. 

Max nodded. 


End file.
